Commvault has appointed GTI Software and Networking as its distributor for the 27 French-speaking countries in Africa.
Based in Morocco, GTI is a well-known value added distributor in Northern and French-speaking African countries, and the appointment comes at a time when Commvault is aiming to become the data management vendor of choice within the next 18 months. Commvault will leverage the GTI sales and pre-sales workforce as an extension of its business in the region.
This is according to Gerhard Fourie, Channel Lead at Commvault Africa, who says GTI’s ability to help Commvault navigate potential pitfalls around financing and tax in each country in French speaking Africa will add sustainability to its engagement in the region.
“Onboarding GTI as a new distributor will definitely help Commvault tap into a new key market. Especially given that GTI’s experience – especially in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria – will benefit and ease our go to market push in those regions. They also provide us with much needed access to French-speaking resources,” says Fourie.
Initial engagement
He explains that Commvault started engaging with GTI in 2021, just after the appointment of Hicham Marwane as Commvault’s North Africa Territory Manager. Commvault officially appointed GTI as a distributor and signed all the relevant contracts in November of that year.
Fourie says that potential distributors are vetted on their credit worthiness, regional experience, marketing capabilities and the availability of sales and technical resources. The distributors not only need to have a presence in the region and be known to the reseller ecosystem, but they also need to have some of Commvault’s alliance vendors in their portfolio.
“Once the distributor is onboarded, they need to complete the full-sale, presales and technical certifications as per our distribution programme to ensure we can keep on delivering a valued service to our partner ecosystem,” he says.
Fourie notes that Commvault’s Metallic Software-as-a-Service platform will not form part of the distribution agreement, as it is currently not available in the North African region, and so there is no drive around this product at present.
On the radar
Commenting on the distribution agreement and the opportunities it is expected to yield, Hicham Boumesli, Africa Regional Director at GTI points out that teaming up with Commvault has always been on the North African company’s radar, given Commvault’s expertise and best-of-breed technology offerings.
“It would be fair to say that Commvault has been one of our targets for a very long time, not only due to its cutting-edge solutions, but also based on its global reach. We are very happy to be Commvault’s first Master distributor in French-speaking Africa,” Bousmesli says.
He adds that Commvault is committed to establishing and growing its presence in the region and as such is fully focused on providing GTI with the support it needs. The initial phase of Commvault’s support was to help relocate Marwane to Morocco, from his previous base in Dubai, enabling him to provide face-to-face vendor engagement and support.
“Commvault will also utilise its Market Development Funds (MDF) and alliance processes to help drive awareness and sustainability, while we will obviously play a crucial role in assisting them to leverage the vast opportunities that this market offers,” Bousmesli concludes.